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FTC says Straight Talk's promises of unlimited data were crooked
If you were seduced by offers of "unlimited" phone data on prepaid carriers like Straight Talk or Simple Mobile only to find your service unbearably slow after a certain point, the Federal Trade Commission has your back. The carriers' owner, TracFone, has agreed to pay the FTC $40 million to settle charges that it misled customers by advertising unlimited data that was really throttled into oblivion. In other words, Straight Talk was being... less than straight. Beyond the payout, TracFone has to avoid making sketchy claims in its ads and provide refunds to anyone who's been burned. The settlement won't affect a huge number of people, but it could serve as a warning sign to AT&T and other big carriers trying to avoid penalties for similarly shady throttling practices.
Nokia Lumia 505 gets official for Telcel in Mexico
Folks, there's a new entry-level handset on the market from Nokia, but no... it's not a member of the Asha family. As expected, the Lumia 505 is now official in Mexico. The Windows Phone 7.8 handset combines a 3.7-inch WVGA (800 x 480) ClearBlack AMOLED display with an 8-megapixel rear shooter that captures video at a rather paltry VGA (640 x 480) resolution. Nokia is uncharacteristically tight-lipped about the chipset within, but it was previously tipped that a single-core 800MHz CPU is running the show. The Lumia 505 includes just 256MB of RAM -- another sign of its low-end aspirations -- along with 4GB of internal storage and a 1,300mAh battery. You'll find quadband GSM support on this one, along with WCDMA access (topping out at 7.2Mbps HSDPA) over the 850MHz and 1900MHz bands. As if things weren't official enough, the Lumia 505 is now sitting happily over at Telcel's website. For the moment, neither pricing nor a release date have yet been established. Stay tuned, ya hear?
Low-end Nokia Lumia 505 gets outed, coming as an exclusive to Mexico
It's not exactly often that our neighbors down south get any handset exclusives to call their own, but according to Guerrero Móvil's Facebook page, there's a Mexico-only Lumia 505 well on its way to Telcel's mobile lineup. Aside from touting an 8-megapixel camera, though, the regional carrier doesn't really reveal any other details -- however, rumor has it this Nokia handset will be running Redmond's en-route Widows Phone 7.8 and come sporting a 3.5 or 4-inch WVGA display with an 800MHz, single-core processor, 256MB RAM and 4GB of built-in storage. Of course, it's still a tad bit early to say these specs are set in stone, but the social network post does note that the WP slab will soon be official, and thus it's only a matter of time before we find out what the Lumia 505 really has to offer.
Mobile Miscellany: week of May 28th, 2012
Not all mobile news is destined for the front page, but if you're like us and really want to know what's going on, then you've come to the right place. This past week, we learned of another possible prepaid destination for the iPhone (hint: it's a subsidiary of Sprint), and Samsung announced a combined sales total of 50 million Galaxy S and Galaxy S II smartphones. These stories and more await after the break. So buy the ticket and take the ride as we explore the "best of the rest" for this week of May 28th, 2012.
CFC backtracks on Slim's near-billion dollar fine in Mexico, lays out other terms and conditions
The ongoing kerfuffle between Mexico's Federal Competition Commission and Carlos Slim's America Movil (Telcel's parent company) took a drastic turn earlier today. According to the CFC, a deal has been reached with Slim's telecom outfit that, among other things, will revoke the 11,989,000,000 pesos fine (about $1 billion dollars) imposed back in 2011. That being said, the wealthiest man on the globe isn't completely off the hook, as America Movil's been given five new demands that must be adhered to. Among these are reducing the current per-minute interconnection rates from .95 to .36 pesos, sharing the Telcel waves with other companies in the country and routinely providing the CFC with extensive details to prove the aforementioned requirements are being followed. Should America Movil not live up to its end of the deal, the Mexican regulator could hit Carlos Slim & Co. with a fine of up to eight percent of Telcel's annual revenue -- which, needless to say, is a heck of a lot of cash.
Mexico's CFC deems Telcel 'too dominant' in mobile call termination, more regulations coming
Things could be getting a tad bit messy for the world's richest man, Carlos Slim, as Mexico's CFC (or Federal Competition Commission) has ruled one of his companies holds too much power in a key wireless sector. The CFC's beef with Telcel isn't exactly novel; earlier this year the antitrust agency served the phone outfit with an 11,989,000,000 pesos fine (around a $1 billion) for "monopoly practices." Telcel's latest troubles date back to 2011, when the CFC deemed the company "too dominant" in the mobile call termination game, and now it's taken a unanimous vote that'll allow it to implement "asymmetric" regulations on Telcel's service quality, charges and information. Not all is lost for Slim's carrier, however, since it could still appeal the CFC's decision.
Rumor: New iPhone 4 handset at the end of September
Honestly, I don't even believe this one, but it's our responsibility as an Apple news site to keep you updated on the latest rumors, so here you go: A Mexican tech site is reporting that a Telcel executive says there will be a new version of the iPhone 4's handset released as soon as the end of September. Marco Quatorze, Telcel's Director of Value Added Services, says that the iPhone 4 will soon go on sale in Mexico with the same hardware as everywhere else, but that as of September 30th (which is purportedly when the free case deal ends), Apple will be releasing brand new hardware for the phone that will fix the seam in the outer band that causes reception issues. Anyone who's been paying attention to the issue knows that story's full of holes -- not only does Apple already consider the whole "Antennagate" issue solved, but it's extremely improbable that they'll update the hardware so soon and for that reason. It's much more likely that the company would just extend the free case program rather than update the hardware before the planned cycle. Plus, as we heard from Apple specificially, "Apple has not made an announcement regarding iPhone 4 pricing or availability in Mexico." Let's get the phone on sale before we start talking about updates.* It's possible that this is just an error in translation. If you want to get a little paranoid, we might even guess that Mr. Quatorze is trying to keep Mexican customers from buying another cellphone, hinting that there are better phones coming just around the corner. Either way, we're only posting this rumor here for due diligence -- it's extremely unlikely we'll see a new iPhone 4 in just over a month. *As noted in the comments here, on the iPhone 4 Mexico post and on Apple's own site, the iPhone 4 is available in Mexico, but Apple has yet to provide us with an actual statement to that effect. [via MacRumors]
GSM Palm Pre bound for Mexico, coming to Telcel on November 27th
Remember that FCC filing for a GSM-loving North American Palm Pre? Looks like the mystery's been solved, Encyclopedia Brown, and our culprit is just south of the border. As previously rumored, Mexico's Telcel will get the Pre, SIM card slot and all. Launch date is November 27th, just in time for the US to be thankful for an online community ready to unlock and import this stateside. [Thanks, Andres]
GSM Palm Pre to launch on Telcel in Mexico, feature storage expansion?
Well, this is interesting: we'd been under the impression that Telefonica had pretty much wrapped up a global exclusive on the GSM Palm Pre under the O2 and Movistar brands, but here we are, looking at two videos which claim that the Pre will launch in Mexico under rival América Móvil's Telcel label. That's certainly interesting -- and even more intriguingly, we're told that the gentlemen in this video are discussing storage expansion slots on the Pre, which is basically like having a conversation about Santa winning the Super Bowl in terms of Things That Are Real. Did Telcel just manage to pull the rug out from under Movistar and land what could be the best Pre of them all? We're on pins and needles, here. Videos after the break -- and if anyone wants to leave a better translation for us in comments, we're all ears.
Telcel launching Pantech C570 slider with preloaded Paty Cantu content
Celebrity tie-ins are always a surefire way to put a little more oomph behind the launch of an otherwise bland handset, and in Mexico, carrier Telcel is doing exactly that to celebrate the launch of its latest Pantech piece. The C570 is a pretty basic GSM phone with some stylish color accents, FM radio with RDS, and dedicated music controls, but what immediately turns up the interest knob by a notch or two is that they've hooked up with local star Paty Cantu to preload the phone with artist content. Further helping the handset's street cred as a music phone is the fact that it's also got a 3.5mm jack, a remote with yet another set of music controls, and microSD expansion up to 8GB -- but with the brooding expression on Paty's face here, we can't rightfully say we're sure whether she's delighted, horrified, ambivalent, or utterly unaware of the offering.
Mexican 3G auction could bring in $1.5B, depending on bidders' moods
Mexico's prepping for a big auction of purpose-built 3G spectrum in the 1700 and 1900MHz bands toward the end of the year, and at least one big-time investment group, Banamex, believes that could net as much as $1.5 billion for the government when everything's said and done. The estimate actually runs from $1 billion to $1.5 billion depending on the number of bidders that ultimately decide to participate and which side of the bed they woke up on that morning, but any way you slice it, it's a nice chunk of change (for comparison's sake, Canada's AWS auction brought in CAD $4.2 billion -- about $3.86 billion). Telcel, Telefonica, and NII are all said to be virtual locks to place bids, while Mexico's number-three operator -- Iusacell -- may sit this one out considering its less-than-stellar financial situation and a stash of spare spectrum that it already has at its disposal. Before you start any wild rumors that a foreign company might swoop in and shake things up, be warned -- Banamex says that's highly unlikely considering failed attempts to bust into the Mexican market by Verizon, Voda, and France Telecom in the past.
Telcel's iPhone pricing in Mexico: not bad
The strategies carriers around the world are employing to price the iPhone 3G and its plans seem to be varying pretty wildly -- a side-effect of the newfound freedom Apple is giving them with the new model -- but in Mexico, where Telcel's signed up to release it, the strategy isn't too terribly different from AT&T's. Plans will run between MXN $399.60 and $876.90 (also available in US Dollar denominations of $41 to $90.85 after tax), and the phones will be priced on a graduated scale accordingly. The 8GB goes from MXN $3,199 down to free, while the 16GB will hit your wallet for anywhere between MXN $4,459 and $1,259. In US greenbacks, that works out to $311, free (because free's free in any currency, after all), $433, and $122, respectively. So yes, at the cheapest plan price, both models cost over $100 more than their US equivalents, but the plan's only $41 at that level, which nets you 200 voice minutes, 100 messages, and 100MB of data. Extra texts are 74 centavos (about 8 cents) and extra data -- a very real necessity -- runs 5 centavos per KB, which is a pretty immeasurably small amount of cash until you do the math and realize that you're going to be shelling out about USD $4.86 per megabyte. Be careful there![Via Engadget Spanish]
Blue Palm Centro in the mix, but not in the US
Seems a little bizarre that AT&T would choose to launch white and lime over this more conservative choice -- but they did, and our Mexican friends get to reap the benefits. The blue variant of the GSM Centro is available via Telcel and Movistar -- exclusivity's apparently not an issue here -- and offers specs that are otherwise unchanged from its international cousins. Eh, on second thought, we think we like the white better anyway.[Via IntoMobile and Palm Infocenter]
Pantech releases S100 in Mexico
Korea's Pantech launched a handset with Telcel this week in a bid to bolster its presence in Mexico. The S100 is a plain white candybar, and while decidedly lacking in crazy styling -- as per Pantech's usual conceptual flair – it does pack all the basic features an intro-level handset user could ever want. Featuring triple-band GSM / GPRS (no frequency info was posted), 1.8 inch screen, VGA camera, MP3 ringtones, and even a voice note function to babble down your thoughts, it leaves little to complain about. No word on how many monies this will set subscribers back, but we don't expect it to drain even the smallest of piggy banks.
Cellphones go silent as Mexico's biggest network fails
Millions Hundreds of millions of us could not get through the day without access to our beloved mobiles, so the scene in Mexico City this week when the Telcel wireless network went down must have been quite the frenzy, and even more than the mess that was caused by intermittent Cingular outages almost one year ago here up North. Millions of Mexican cellular customers has nothing but silence in the earpieces of all those handsets when Telcel's network, uh -- how do we put this nicely? -- crashed. The details of the network going down centered on a technical fault in western Mexico City, temporarily saturating the Telcel network, Mexico's largest wireless carrier with 40 million customers (a little smaller than Sprint Nextel's customer base here in the U.S.). The good news after the network went down in Mexico City was that it was soon back up, as service began returning just hours later. Service was 90% functional by late afternoon Tuesday.
Pantech hooks up with Telcel for five new handsets
Pantech might still be an up-and-comer in the US market, but if you head south of the border, you'll find that they're the fourth largest manufacturer -- this coming just two years after entering the Mexican market through an exclusive agreement with carrier Telcel -- but it looks like they're still aiming higher. The Korean company chose this week to announce not one, not two, but five new models exclusive to Telcel in the Mexican market, most interestingly the PG-6200 clamshell with fingerprint recognition and 2-megapixel cam. Also along for the ride are the PG-1310V, PG-3810, and PG-1810 clamshells, and the PG-1610 slider, all with oddly similar specs: 1.5-inch main display and VGA cams across the board.